National Instruments Introduces High-Density Industrial Digital I/O for USB

The industrial feature set includes programmable power-up states, digital I/O watchdog timers, change detection and programmable input filters. With programmable power-up states, engineers can pre-define the state in which the USB-6509 device powers up, ensuring consistent, reliable operation when connected to industrial actuators such as pumps, valves, motors or relays. Digital I/O watchdog timers can detect a variety of fault conditions such as a computer crash and automatically respond by setting the outputs to a user-defined safe state. With change detection, the device automatically triggers an application to perform a read operation after a digital line changes state. Also, engineers can eliminate unintended glitches and spikes in input data and avoid false readings caused by noise with programmable input filters.

The 96-channel device is compatible with TTL, CMOS and 5 V digital logic levels and each port of eight lines is individually configurable for input or output. The USB-6509 can drive external digital devices such as solid-state relays (SSRs) with current up to 24 mA per line while pull-up and pull-down resistors included on the device stabilise the bus potential during a non-access state. The bus-powered device can source up to 215 mA total across all digital output lines. An optional 12 VDC power supply is available for additional sourcing current.

The USB-6509 works with NI-DAQmx driver software, which features an easy-to-use and intuitive interface for programming. The device is also compatible with NI LabVIEW, NI LabWindows™/CVI, ANSI C/C++, Visual Basic .NET, C# and Visual Basic 6.0.